Underheight.com

That’s an easy answer — too many of them are either unimaginative or care more about power and partisan victories than actually dealing with the big issues.

From Newsweek:

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which produces Congress’s official projections about the long-term fiscal effects of legislation, Ryan’s Roadmap for America’s Future would zero out the deficit, balance the budget by 2063, and reduce Medicare’s expected share of the economy in 2080 from a projected 14.3 percent of GDP to a mere 4 percent. The Roadmap also calls for a substantial simplification of the tax code and a replacement of the corporate income tax with an 8.5 percent business consumption tax. CBO’s projections are inherently uncertain—even the most competent economic forecasters can only guess at how the world will change over 50-plus years. But the result is, at the very least, a compelling conservative vision of the country’s fiscal future.

But is that something they’re willing to do? Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute and author of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution, says that Ryan’s plan offers “one of the few serious plans in Washington.” Yet he worries that “it is far too serious for today’s Republicans.”

I’ve long believed that “global warming” theory is, at best, inconclusive science; at worst, religious zealotry masquerading as science. The UK has confirmed the latter.

Ed Morrisey has an excellent list of recent news articles from non-US media on the growing criticisms of global warming research.

Definitely check out Ed’s full list, but here are some of the better articles I’ve come across recently:

World may not be warming, say scientists

From the Wall Street Journal, one of the few American articles on the subject — The Continuing Climate Meltdown

Politico.com reports that former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson is seriously considering running against Russ Feingold for his US Senate seat in 2012 2010.

Thompson has alerted his Washington-based law firm of his moves and is contacting key clients about the prospect of challenging Feingold, the most tangible signals yet that he’s seriously exploring a 2010 campaign.

“The governor has taken additional steps in the past week and will continue to do so over the next several weeks. If the meetings go well, you can expect to see an exploratory committee set up near the end of March,” former state commerce secretary and Thompson campaign manager Bill McCoshen told POLITICO.

Another longtime Thompson ally said the governor already has $200,000 in potential donations for a campaign that doesn’t yet exist.

A Rasmussen Reports survey taken just last week demonstrates why Thompson might be seriously looking at a Senate bid.

While the two announced GOP candidates — real-estate entrepreneur Terrence Wall and businessman Dave Westlake — trail Feingold by 8 to 10 percentage points, Thompson holds a slight 5-percentage-point edge, 48 percent to 43 percent, just outside the margin of error.

“Remember, Tommy hasn’t been on the ballot in 12 years in Wisconsin, yet he still has 95 percent name identification.”

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) was on Fox News Sunday this morning. This is a “must watch” interview. Ryan is the ranking Republican on the House Budget committee — a very well deserved position for this articulate, intelligent, young, and quite reasonable Representative. He explains the various GOP health care proposals and how the massive 2400 page Democratic socialist plan to takeover health care in this country is full of double counting TTTrillions of dollars sure to drive us further into debt.

(The transcript is also available here.)

a hippopotamus, of course!

from last night’s SNL — simply awesome, because it’s 100% true:

One of the best I’ve seen so far in the current issue of Atlantic Monthly. (Yes, I now subscribe to Atlantic Monthly again — they made an offer I couldn’t refuse). It’s available free online in its entirety.

The essential points are:

1. There’s a difference between “health”, “health care”, and “health insurance”. One is your state of being that’s affected by many things — job, housing, family, goal attainment, etc.; one is the actual methods of keeping you healthy, mainly medically; and the other is one of many methods to pay for health care.

2. None of the reforms really address the core issue — reliance on employer (or government) provided insurance to pay for almost every medical procedure. Therefore, the patient is not the actual consumer, so normal market forces cannot apply in driving down costs while increasing value, quality, and access. Medical insurance should only be used for truly catastrophic ($50,000+ / year) events.

A simple analogy — when I got new windows in my house, I paid for it, not my homeowner’s insurance. And even if my homeowner’s insurance covered new windows, it would be due to a catastrophe — a tornado, for example. And, my employer would have 0 to do with it.

Also, I just got new brakes on my car. Again, I paid for it, not my auto insurance. And even if my auto insurance paid for it, it would be due to a catastrophe — an accident. And, again, my employer would have nothing to do with it.

I don’t agree with all the solutions proposed — having federal government involvement in providing the catastrophic insurance is ripe for tinkering and abuse and we’re just as likely to end up worse off than we are now. Also, mandating insurance is neither constitutional nor desired from a market-oriented approach. Even with those caveats on part of the proposed solution, this article is one of the best I’ve seen on this debate so far.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care

No good can come of this, especially when the left coasters in Oregon were the first state to try it.

Brian Jennings, author of ”Censorship: The Threat to Silence Talk Radio,” was interviewed by Monica Crowley, Talk Radio Host on C-SPAN’s Book TV recently.

Here’s the hour long podcast

If that link doesn’t work for you, try this one

ABC announced it was cancelling the new Mike Judge series “The Goode Family”.

“The Goode family struggles with modern social and environmental responsibilities being liberals, and the paradoxes that arise for a working-class family when trying to be politically correct all of the time about everything.” (Wikipedia)

I saw a few of the 13 episodes and thought they were funny and really promising. It was a good combination of thoughtful political humor and modern American life.

ABC originally ran it on Wednesdays for a few weeks in late May and early June. Then the NBA playoffs moved the show to Friday nights where it stayed. Of course the ratings were terrible! Putting on a new series, in the summer, on Fri. nights?

ABC also never posted full episodes online — none at the show’s site on ABC.com nor on hulu.

This is a perfect show for getting linked to on the blogosphere. Given ABC’s lackluster online presence compared to other networks (especially NBC), I’m not surprised. I’m also not surprised that a show mocking modern suburban liberal attitudes was cancelled by a bunch of modern suburban liberals.

Mike Judge is a comic genius. Hopefully this show finds a good home somewhere else. Comedy Central always seems to be trying new things. And Fox seems to like restarting cancelled shows when they have a shot — see Family Guy and Futurama

So, if you want to bring back the Goode Family, send ABC an email and sign up for notification on Amazon when the DVD is ready.